She closed her eyes now as Father Luigi droned on with his homily on original sin and how sacraments like First Communion bring sinners back to that state of innocence abandoned after childhood. She hadn’t really believed Ellie could do it—leave Pittsburgh, leave her parents’ graves, leave Daniel and her never-ending search for him—but she had.
Could you?
That question had been nagging at her more and more.
It’s not that simple.
Sitting on her dresser—the only ornamental thing in her entire apartment—was the calligraphy Ellie had made for her mother and asked Sullivan to deliver to her. Sitting beside it was Ellie’s note. I hope one day you’ll come to me with this, but if you don’t, keep it to remember me.
Lately, Teresa had felt stirrings of something she couldn’t at first identify. She found herself daydreaming about what Ellie might be doing now, or she would read something and her first thought was, I have to remember to tell Ellie about that. Her nightmares were becoming less frequent and less vivid. There had been a few good dreams, too, even some erotic ones in which Ellie was making love to her, and she woke throbbing with an orgasm.
Teresa snapped to as the homily ended, and everyone shifted.
Father Luigi began blessing the bread and wine for Communion, and there was a stir of excitement. Daniela’s second grade class filled the first two rows so they could watch the momentous preparations for this milestone in their lives. When it was time, the nuns whispered to the children, herding them to the back of the nave so they could line up two by two, girls on the right, boys on the left. In their columns, they marched solemnly down the center aisle, the boys wearing their first suits, hair slicked back, cheeks soft and rosy, while the girls patted the full skirts of their white dresses, some still wearing lace pinned to their hair, a few with white gloves. Daniela gave a nervous wave as she marched by, almost walking up the heels of the girl in front of her. Francesca put a hand over her eyes and shook her head.
Can you even remember what it felt like to be that excited by something? Teresa frowned, trying to recall. She’d certainly been excited, giddy even, about things as a girl—First Communion, first bicycle, starting high school, going to college—but then, her life had settled into a… a flatness, where nothing seemed extraordinary, nothing stood out. Until Ellie. Ellie had brought color and joy and excitement back into a life that had become merely existence. Teresa shook her head. I’m reading too much, she thought with a droll smile. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that her life had become flat again, monochromatic, like a black and white photo.
After the Mass was over, every family jostled for photos of their child standing on the steps in front of the altar.
“This is going to take forever,” Bernie whispered. “Come on.”
“I’m going to stay,” Mrs. D’Armelio said. “I’ll see you at the Martellis.”
Together, Teresa and Bernie escaped into the bright September sunshine. “Shit. This is going to be a big deal, isn’t it?”
“Yup. As big as Christmas,” Teresa said. She retrieved her sunglasses from her purse. “My family hasn’t had an occasion like this for ages. My mother and the aunts are going to make the most of it.” She grabbed Bernie’s elbow. “Let’s walk. Leave the car here.”
Bernie looked at her as if she were crazy, but shrugged and reached for a cigarette. “So, how’s the new place?”
“Different.” Teresa squinted up at the brilliantly blue sky. “I have never lived alone. You have any idea how weird that feels?”
Bernie thought about it. “I haven’t, either. Jesus, I won’t live alone until Mom dies. That might not be until I’m retired. She’ll live forever.”
Teresa chuckled. For all of Bernie’s complaining about her mother, Teresa could not see her living alone, cooking or cleaning for herself. She didn’t want to think about what that house would look like if Bernie lived there by herself.
“What are you going to do for your birthday?”
Teresa looked at her in shock. “I forgot. Thirty-five next month. Damn. Can you believe we’re this old?”
Bernie snorted. “You mean, this old and exactly where we were when we got out of college. Are we still going to be here in another thirty-five years?”
“Good night, you guys. See you tomorrow.”
Ellie waved to the cooks and waitstaff as she locked up the restaurant. Marion’s original restaurant was in Riverside, on the west side of the Inner Harbor, but she had reasoned that having another location on the east side would be a smart move for those customers who didn’t want to navigate Baltimore’s downtown traffic. The new location in Fell’s Point was doing well. Ellie liked the artsy feel of this section of the city. The only downside was the smell. She sniffed her sleeve as she walked under the streetlights. It was hard to get the fishy smell out of her clothes and hair. She’d been lucky enough to find a small apartment on the second floor over an art gallery. It had been the artist’s living quarters and studio before he started becoming successful. It had large windows that gave her a wonderful view of the city’s skyline. She carried a stout walking stick. She hadn’t had any trouble, but most nights, she got out of the restaurant after the buses stopped running, and walking was her only option. She only had to go eight blocks to get home, but she kept scanning her surroundings as she walked.
Funny, she thought, I used to walk around Pittsburgh at all hours and never worried at all.
Maybe you should have worried more, replied a small voice in her head. If you had, she’d still be with you.
She walked faster, trying to outpace those unwelcome thoughts, but she knew better. They’d been her constant companions since that night. For Ellie, life would never be the same. One stupid decision had changed things forever. Teresa could not forgive her, and now she was alone —again—but more alone than she’d ever been in her life. Marion was nice, but she wasn’t Louise. She was Ellie’s boss, not her friend, and though she had helped get Ellie set up in the new restaurant, she only came by three or four times a week to check on things.
Approaching her building, she looked around to make sure no one was nearby, waiting to pounce as she unlocked the door. The area looked deserted. She unlocked the door and quickly flipped the lock again as soon as she was inside. There, pushed through the mail slot, was the day’s mail. She gathered it up and climbed the stairs to her apartment. She could hear KC meowing as she unlocked the door at the top of the stairs.
“Hi, little one.” She picked KC up and felt the vibration of her purr against her chest. She carried the cat into the kitchen and spooned a little canned food for her. She set cat and food on the table and sat to leaf through her mail, smiling when she saw a letter from Louise. She’d never been much of a letter writer—who did I ever have to write before?—but she had written Louise and Sullivan regularly since moving. Sullivan didn’t write back very often, but Ellie didn’t expect much from him. She wrote because it gave her something to do. Her schedule was much different now. She was working a lot of hours, often not getting home until after midnight and then back at work by ten the next morning, but the pay was good. She was saving money, and what else would you do with your time anyhow? She wondered sometimes how Suzanne and Linda were doing, but she found she didn’t miss the bank at all. She did miss other things, though. She’d said good-bye to Larry, riding his bus one last time before she left, and she’d gone to the little park near the bank to sit one last time, watching the old men play chess, and the mothers with their babies, and the street people wandering around.
She read Louise’s letter, full of bits of this and that, nothing special, but it warmed her heart to read it. She placed it with all the others in a stack on the table. She turned out all the lights and went to shower. A few minutes later, she was sitting on the couch, a towel draped over her shoulders as she continued rubbing her hair dry, looking out the windows at the lit silhouette
s of the skyscrapers in the distance. KC jumped into her lap and settled contentedly. Ellie reached over to the side table where stood a vase with a dried white rose—the one Teresa had left at her door—and she felt again that ache where her heart used to be. It’s still there, she reminded herself, touching a finger to the gold heart hanging around her neck—crooked and bent, but whole.
“Teresa, you don’t have to do that,” Mrs. Schiavo said as Teresa paused her sweeping of the sidewalk in front of the store to help distribute the bread.
“I don’t mind.” Teresa took the leftover loaves and broke them in half. She kept glancing over the heads of the people gathered there, hoping to catch a glimpse of Dogman and Lucy, but she suspected she would never see them again. She gave out the last of the bread and returned the tray to Mrs. Schiavo.
“Come inside.” Mrs. Schiavo led the way into the bakery and poured two cups of strong coffee. She joined Teresa at a table, setting a doughnut down in front of her. “How are you doing?”
Teresa tore off a bite of doughnut and dunked it in her coffee before eating it. “I’m doing okay.”
Mrs. Schiavo peered into her face. “Just okay?”
Teresa nodded. “Just okay. But okay is better than it has been.”
Mrs. Schiavo thought about this as she sipped her coffee. “What would make it better than okay? Is it your mama?”
“No, surprisingly.” Teresa gave a tight-lipped smile. “It isn’t my mother.”
“Then it’s love,” Mrs. Schiavo said. “Love, she doesn’t always go smooth, does she?”
Teresa opened her mouth and closed it. “No. She doesn’t always go smooth.”
“How old are you?”
Teresa blinked. “Thirty-five next week.”
“So young.” Mrs. Schiavo clucked her tongue. “So much life ahead of you. Are you better? From the hospital?”
“Yes.” Teresa kept her gaze on her doughnut. “I’m better.”
“But still afraid?”
Teresa looked up sharply. “Yes, sometimes.”
“And angry.” Mrs. Schiavo nodded. “Fear and anger, they go like this.” She clasped her gnarled hands together. “When the fear, she goes away, the anger, she will go, also.”
“I’d better get back to the store,” Teresa said. “Thanks, Mrs. Schiavo.”
The drugstore was still empty when she got back inside. Her mother had been coming in a bit later than she used to. It wasn’t exactly angry between them anymore. It was just strained. They talked about the store and inventory; they talked about Francesca and the kids; they talked about the aunts, but Sylvia never mentioned Ellie or asked how Teresa was doing in her house. Teresa brought her own dinner; Sylvia didn’t come back with a plate in the evenings.
“I always wished she would stop being so nosy, butting into my life all the time,” Teresa had confided to Bernie a couple of days ago. “But now that she has, it’s really weird.”
“Good weird or bad weird?”
“More good than bad,” Teresa said. “Makes it hard to think of things to say sometimes, so we just don’t talk for long periods of time.”
“Jesus, that would be weird,” Bernie said. “I can’t picture your mother keeping her mouth shut. What do you want to do for your birthday?”
“That was an abrupt change of topic,” Teresa said, narrowing her eyes. “Why? What do you have in mind?”
Bernie grinned with a wicked gleam in her eyes. “Want to go dancing? I kind of miss going out to Wild Sisters. It was fun. And it’s not like the asshole will ever take me dancing. Too afraid someone will see us and tell his fucking wife.”
“I’ll think about it,” Teresa said, but privately, she knew she had no intention of going near that place again. To be there without Ellie would feel as if she were cheating. That made no sense, but she couldn’t imagine being with another woman, even if it was just dancing. “In the meantime, I need you and your mom to come to dinner on Sunday. I don’t know if I can stand them celebrating my birthday without some backup.”
CHAPTER 31
Teresa knocked on the door and opened it. “Anyone home?”
“Come on in,” Karen called from the kitchen. “Rob should be home any minute.”
Teresa took off her jacket and hung it in the foyer closet. “What can I help with?”
“Pour us some wine, and then you can take over with the fettuccini.” Karen moved over to chop up some carrots for a salad.
“Fettuccini?” Teresa went to the pot where the water was boiling. “Y’uns don’t usually eat this heavy.”
Karen shrugged. “We are tonight.”
Teresa’s eyes narrowed. “What’s up?”
Her question was answered immediately by Rob’s entrance, accompanied by Anita. Teresa gave Karen an “I should have known” kind of look. Robbie, taking Anita’s coat for her, looked a little embarrassed.
“What can I do?” Anita asked. She hurried into the kitchen where Karen set her to work on the salad while she went to finish setting the table.
“So how are you, Nita?” Teresa asked, stirring the fettuccini noodles.
“Same old things,” Anita said. She waved her knife, sending a bit of celery flying through the air. “Everything hurts. I don’t know how long I’m going to last.”
Teresa smiled and picked up the celery. She lifted the cover on the alfredo sauce, giving it a stir and then raised the spoon to her lips. She sprinkled a little more salt into the sauce. “You’d better be here a good, long time. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Anita scoffed. “You never come to see us. When you come to Sunday dinner, you don’t say two words. You’re like a ghost of the old Teresa.”
Teresa didn’t respond. She could feel Anita’s eyes boring into her back, but she busied herself stirring the sauce again.
“Smells great,” Robbie said. He rolled his shirtsleeves and washed up.
They finished dinner preparations and sat, where Anita insisted on saying grace before they ate. Rob passed the bread while Teresa looked suspiciously from one of them to another. They ate for several minutes, but no one said anything and no one made eye contact.
“All right.” Teresa set her fork down. “What’s up? Nita isn’t here by chance. Y’uns are up to something, so out with it.”
Anita suddenly found her salad very interesting while Rob shoveled another forkful of fettuccini into his mouth. Karen gave them a disapproving glance.
“Since these two are turning chicken,” Karen said, “I’ll tell you what’s going on.” She set her fork down as well and placed her elbows on the table. “We’re worried about you.”
Teresa sat back. Conversations like this never happened in this family. It was one thing to yell or squabble, but no one talked about feelings. She waited nervously.
“Let her eat first,” Rob said, but at Karen’s glower, he lowered his fork as well. “She’s right. We are worried about you.”
“You’re not happy,” Anita said.
“I’m fine,” Teresa said. “I’ve just been through a lot.”
“Yes, you have,” Karen said. “I can’t imagine what you went through that night, but this is more than that, and you know it.”
Teresa’s heart hammered in her chest. Except for blurting out to her mother that she loved Ellie, she’d never talked about this to anyone. She didn’t know exactly how much they knew or guessed.
“Resa,” Rob said. “Look, we know this is hard. And it’s not something you can just talk about. But we want to tell you, all of us, that we support you. We’ll be here for you, no matter what.”
Teresa stared at her plate. They still weren’t saying precisely what it was they supported—do they really know? She couldn’t speak, couldn’t take the chance that they weren’t talking about the same thing.
“Teresa.” Anita reached over and place
d her hand on Teresa’s arm. “I told you about Nikolas. How we let our families keep us apart. How I’ve regretted that decision my whole life. I may not understand loving another girl, but I understand love. If you love Ellie, you need to go to her.”
Teresa couldn’t have been more shocked if Anita had slapped her. She looked up warily, meeting their eyes one at a time, watching for signs of judgment or disgust—the things she’d seen in her mother’s eyes—but there was none of that.
Karen spoke first. “We’ve never seen you as alive as you were with Ellie.”
“And this,” Rob said, waving his hand in her direction, “is bullshit.”
Teresa snorted with laughter, her eyes filling with tears.
Rob pressed his advantage. “We’ll deal with Ma and Pop. Go to her.”
Teresa blinked rapidly. “It’s not that simple. We didn’t—things weren’t good between us when she left.”
Karen reached for Rob’s hand. “Love isn’t always easy. We’ve had our rough patches. But it’s always worth it. Do you love her?”
Do you still love me?
Teresa hadn’t been able to answer that question when Ellie asked it. She hadn’t felt anything except fear and anger then, but, as Mrs. Schiavo had said, when she’d finally been able to let go of the fear, the anger had gone as well. What was left now, was an ache—a terrible, empty ache.
“I… I have to think about it,” was all Teresa could say.
“But—”
Karen started to argue, but Anita cut in.
“That’s enough for now. The food’s getting cold. Let’s eat.”
Teresa shot her godmother a look of gratitude. She knew Teresa well enough to know that more talking was not productive. All her life, the best way to talk Teresa into anything was to plant the seed and leave her alone to think it over.
When dinner was over, Teresa and Anita insisted on helping to clean up.
“Thanks,” Teresa mumbled to Rob and Karen as she said good night. “I’ll take Nita home.”
Cast Me Gently Page 30
